CISA is Saving Money – At What Cost?

I understand that the government needs to save money. There probably is enough waste to fund a small country. Or many a bigger one. But are we doing that wisely?

CISA, which is the key agency to protect civilian government agencies, especially now with all of the layoffs and which is also the agency directed to help protect corporate America has a problem.

With looming budget cuts (the administration asked for a 17 percent cut) and looming layoffs (rumored to be up to 40 percent of the staff), here is what is happening ahead of all of that.

The new “number two” at the agency said:

• The head of three (of six) of CISA divisions are leaving this month. Those are
  • Cybersecurity
  • Infrastructure security
  • Integrated operations (which runs CISA’s field offices)
• The deputy head of a fourth is also leaving
• The head of finance is leaving
• As is the head of strategy
• And the head of human resources
• And, finally, the head of contracting

In addition to this, many of the agency’s contractors have had their contracts cancelled.

All of this is BEFORE the budget and staffing cuts.

Given all of this, do you think CISA is going to be focused on protecting the government and us – or are they going to be trying to figure out how to keep the wheels on the bus.

The problem that the government has is that while sometimes they can attract smart people even though the working conditions are horrible and the pay is sub-par, when management isn’t listening those people will have multiple job offers before they reach the front door.

While the people who are left may have decent skills, they don’t have the experience and don’t know what it takes to keep the agency, the government and the US business sector operating.

Only time will tell how much the mission of CISA will be impacted, but it will be impacted.

For you and me it means that we cannot count of CISA like we have in the past. An example of that is that CISA almost shut down the common vulnerability database. It only got an 11 month reprieve, so we may have to deal with this in a few months again. The common vulnerability database is used by security software vendors, cybersecurity pros and business people.

Even of you don’t directly use CISA’s services, your vendors, like us, do use them and will miss them if they are gone.

Stay tuned. And hope that someone figures out that saving money could cost a lot of money. Credit: Washington Post

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